


What Better Time

by keysmash



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Related, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-10
Updated: 2010-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-06 03:03:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keysmash/pseuds/keysmash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It has to start somewhere<br/>It has to start somehow<br/>What better place than here<br/>What better time than now<br/>All hell can't stop us now</i><br/>"Guerilla Radio," Rage Against The Machine</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Better Time

**Author's Note:**

> This is an episode tag for 316, No Rest For The Wicked, and is accordingly full of spoilers. Some phrases have been borrowed from canon. Beta by [](http://sundancekid.livejournal.com/profile)[**sundancekid**](http://sundancekid.livejournal.com/).

They caravanned out of New Harmony in silence, in darkness.

Bobby had wanted to drive Sam, but he'd refused. He couldn't just hide the Impala and trust it would remain undiscovered until they came back for it. He wouldn't leave the last shining, perfect part of his life because she was inconvenient, or because he wasn't strong enough. Bobby talked about things Sam already knew – exhaustion, adrenaline, crashing – but Sam just shook his head and stood his ground.

And in the end, Sam won out. In the end, Bobby helped him.

They stretched out Ruby's bloody shell in the backseat. Bobby argued for salting her and burning the long-dead corpse on the spot, but Sam shook his head again and picked her up by the shoulders. Bobby had her feet before Sam reached the front door. They wrapped her roughly in a tarp, as protection for the upholstery, and then in a blanket, as protection from prying eyes.

While Bobby let the family out of the basement, Sam carried Dean to the Impala on his own. He settled Dean carefully in the front seat, with his feet in the foot well and his head resting on Sam's thigh, in the driver's side. Dean wouldn't have wanted to be with Ruby, and Sam wasn't putting him in the trunk. The trunk was not the final ride Dean deserved.

Bobby carried an armload of travel mugs out of the house, and handed half through the window to Sam. Sam wedged them where he could and gulped from the first one, not wincing at the burn in his mouth. Bobby frowned at him, but Sam started the engine and wrapped his hands around the wheel. He rolled the window up before Bobby could offer to take someone in his car. They were both here on Sam's account, and he would carry them a little longer.

He followed Bobby's taillights down the quiet roads, carefully nosing just above the speed limit. The last of Dean's warmth faded away, and Sam chased his thoughts in tight circles.

Ruby wanted him to use it, whatever power he held within himself, with only hours left. It wouldn't take long. It wouldn't be hard.

It was a gift, Max said. I've been practicing, Andy said. Give in to it, Jake said. There's all sorts of tricks you can learn.

A lifetime ago, in freshman orientation, Sam sat in a seminar about accepting yourself. Own all the parts of yourself, the presenter said, even the ones you don't like. They made you who you are. At least be willing to claim them as your own.

He'd been thinking of his powers as something bad. They cost him his family, and his dreams. He knew the deaths he saw but failed to stop. He knew the people his life had cost. The Millers; everyone killed by Ansem; Ash; Mary, Jessica, John.

But now, Sam let himself see all the times they went in smart because of him. He let himself think of all the people he saved. Jenny and her kids; Mrs. Miller; the family in Salvation; Tracey; Dean.

Dean. He kept Dean from killing, and, once, he kept Dean from being killed. Sam felt the weight of Dean's head and thought about what it would have cost to save him again. What would it cost him now? He wondered if the price would be different, retroactively.

Sam knew his family's mistakes. He spent almost a decade raging against these faults, but now he understood them. He saw the selfish selflessness that fueled their sacrifices. He knew the strength of the love that drove them time and again into the fire, to snatch family away from the clutches of death, and of Hell. Sam wasn't going to fault them for their love any longer.

Flip a switch, Ava said. Flip a switch, Lilith said. Crash and burn, Jess said.

They hadn't cleaned Dean before they left, and the blood dried dark on his face. Sam placed his hand on Dean's forehead, and clenched his jaw at the coolness of his skin. He was far from the first dead body Sam touched – far, even, from the first newly-dead person to rest in Sam's lap. This wasn't the first person Sam was desperate to have saved. He'd held Dean's dead body too many times before.

It wasn't the first time he could save Dean. This wasn't the first time Dean saved him, either. Their entire lives were spent in training for this, for protecting each other.

Bobby followed the back roads until they poured onto the main highway. Other traffic slowly joined them as the night turned to morning, and the stars faded into the background. Sam shook a blanket out one-handed and tucked it around Dean, as if he were only sleeping.

He didn't like the person he became by himself, tracking the Trickster. He'd been efficient and deadly, but also obsessive, obsessed. He could do this on his own, but he didn't want to.

He didn't have to.

Sam felt cautiously around the edges of his mind, poking at the thoughts he usually ignored. No warning bells sounded; nothing was wrapped in mental caution tape. Sam lived most of his life without finding this power because it had always been there, inconspicuous. It had always been part of him.

_All right_, Sam thought. He rubbed his thumb over Dean's forehead, flaking off a spot of blood, and then wrapped his hand around the steering wheel. _All right. I'll use it. This is mine, and I'm taking it._

He held his breath for a moment, but nothing changed. The ground didn't open below him, to swallow him up. The sky didn't fall, or fill with ash. Sam didn't feel any more evil than usual. He only felt like himself.

He felt more like himself than he ever had before, as if he'd been concentrated; purified and then multiplied.

Sam exhaled then, slowly, and all tension left his body with the used air. Exhaustion fell from his eyes. Hunger vanished, and the stale aftertaste of coffee. The ache in his bones, from a night of travel and fighting after a year of constant worry, faded away.

And he _knew_ things, now. The path back to Bobby's stood out brightly in his mind, but Sam knew where to turn to go anywhere else he wanted. When he blinked, calculus sang behind his eyes, perfect and poetic, even though he never took math higher than non-majors Calc I. The family in the lane next to him was headed to a family reunion; they had donuts for breakfast; the mom was hopped up on her daughter's ADHD meds, and the daughter sat waiting for their next rest stop and her first joint of the day.

Sam knew the depth of every claw-mark in Dean's body. He saw where Dean hung waiting for him, lost and crying. He knew where Lilith fled to lick her wounds, and he understood how Ruby struggled again to escape. He knew what came next; he knew just how long to wait, and then how to start.

Bobby's taillights were useless and invisible now, as morning streamed into day. Sam laid his hand back on Dean's face. After a moment, Sam smiled, and the dried blood all fell away.


End file.
